Sorta
by wonderousish
Summary: Morgan tries to talk to Emily. Sometime mid-season 7. Oneshot.


She walked out the front door and headed towards the parking lot. Dark and murky. When she'd been in Paris, she had felt imprisoned, within her mind, within the confines of her soul in some sense, and also by the looming situation of her hiding, but at least she could look out at the city before her and forget for a second that she was surrounded by iron. She could escape, for brief moments, by looking into the hills of pink flowers, the glowing city streets and night, the hopeful boulevards after rainy days. Now she was free, but the gritty and grey walls and buildings everywhere made her feel as if she was not. She should be free now, as she had no enemy to worry about, nobody to hide from, but she did not feel free.

She spotted Morgan across from her as she walked through the parking lot, and quickly turned away from him to take another direction to her own car.

"Hey. Emily." She heard him shout from behind her. She opened her car door.

"Emily, wait." Always. She turned back towards Morgan, who was walking towards her from behind the next row of cars. He approached her, looking at her with his piercing eyes, analyzing her, scanning her; it was though he had to prove to himself that she was real. She returned the eye contact but her vision wavered and blurred. She searched for something to say back to him but no words would come to her; after a long day of speeches to judges and explaining herself to every member of the team, as well as the section chief, she had very little in her mouth left to say. She found that she was feeling quite decimated and insignificant because of the whole situation. Morgan was, to her, a lot more than a teammate; at least, he had been. Emily did not know – and it was possible that she would never find out – what she meant to him; she did not know who she was to anyone. She had died in his arms, almost, and she was almost completely sure that who she had been was still gone, both in physicality and in the depths of her and Morgan's hearts. The Emily of seven months ago, the one that maybe he had adored as beautifully as any friend could, had passed away and become no more than a memory, lost, not wandering in his heart anymore, just an instant and a flicker of an idea, barely existing and barely breathing. So who was she now? Derek continued to look into her eyes, and in several passing seconds Emily wondered who he was looking at. Then he spoke.

"I know that you're uncomfortable," he said. "It's been fine, on the surface, when we're talking at work, discussing cases. That kind of thing. But nothing more."

She shook her head. "It's just strange. I'm sorry. I don't know if I can really explain. Can you?" she asked him. "I'm sure you must understand this."

"I can try to," he replied, "but I'm almost sure that I don't. Why do you have to avoid me, Emily?"

"I'm not avoiding _you. _I… I just don't know what to say, or what to do. I know I'm supposed to have these long speeches of exclamation, of apology. But I don't know what to say; I can't describe why, or how, or what went on those seven months I was dead and gone. I don't understand the motivations behind it, the real, deep ones, below the layer of reason that I convinced myself with."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. What should I do? What are you going to do?"

Morgan sighed. "It's only been a few days. I'm still adjusting, and I'm still waiting things out. But I just want to make things right again, to make them like they were. Okay?"

"Of course," Emily replied. She paused. "You think things can be like they were?"

"Yeah, I think they can be close," Morgan told her. "The situation is different, we may be changed a bit, but I'm still me, and you're still you. We're the same people, behind it all. Behind everything that we've built up. So I think we can make it work." He smiled for a brief moment; it was small, a flicker of a smile, a moment of hope. They stayed still for another moment. Feeling a shiver of cold air, she wrapped her arms around herself.

"That's quite the hopeful statement," she told him. "I hope it works. I really do."

"With time," Morgan said. "And it will be fine, okay?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Emily."

She shook her head to that. She could not leave it at that brief statement. There was more that she owed him, more that had to go into it all, more than a simple gratification. He still looked at her as if she was someone different. No. That was not true; Emily had to believe what Morgan had told her, that she was still her, just her, just here, again, coming back to him, as her own self. She had to forget about her discomfort, and she had to remember the person underneath the layers of who she had become. There was still that person inside. To make things right it required a certain amount of letting go and digging deep. It would be hard work, this job; she did not know what she wanted anymore, from herself, from work, or from anything at all, and the job she performed needed a certain awareness. She would have to search for that. Her eyes retreated to the floor of the parking lot.

"I wish I could do something more about this," she told Morgan. "Make it easier, quicker."

"Yeah," Morgan said. "But I guess that's sorta life."

"It sorta sucks."

Emily looked up at her partner.

"It'll be okay," he said.

"Yeah," she replied, trying to smile. "Sorta."

* * *

_Thanks for reading. All comments appreciated~_

_I wrote this about a year ago and found it in some folder. I changed it up a bit and decided I might as well upload it. Haven't watched CM in a while!_


End file.
